


Four Times Zoe Missed Meal Cubes And One Time She Didn't

by kathkin



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (1963)
Genre: Gen, space dorks in space
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-23
Updated: 2015-10-23
Packaged: 2018-04-27 19:25:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,884
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5061031
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kathkin/pseuds/kathkin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Zoe and Jamie's (mis)adventures with food throughout time and space, from the second century to the forty-second, or, why Zoe resolved to eat more porridge.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Four Times Zoe Missed Meal Cubes And One Time She Didn't

**Author's Note:**

> Loosely inspired by [these](http://ettelwenailinon.tumblr.com/post/130624097976/some-very-important-highlights-from-the) [two](http://keatulie.tumblr.com/post/130538188820/i-love-that-jamie-offhandedly-tells-zoe-she-needs) post on tumblr.

1  
_The TARDIS_  


The whole point of food machines was, as far as Zoe was concerned, efficiency. Press a button, eat a meal’s worth of nutrition in two bites, and then get on with your work. The need for activities like food preparation and dish washing and sit-down meals was entirely eliminated. If that wasn’t progress she didn’t know what was.

So truly, she didn’t understand why, despite having a perfectly good machine to do the work for him, the Doctor insisted on wasting an hour in the morning fussing over breakfast.

It wouldn’t bother her, except after a few days she began to feel awkward not participating in the ritual. And so that morning she was eating her buttered toast food-brick in nibbles while the Doctor brewed tea the old-fashioned way and Jamie made something called ‘porridge’. It was all so messy and so pointless and it irritated her tremendously that she had to watch.

“Tea, Zoe?” She accepted, because she could see the point of tea even if she didn’t understand what he had against bags.

“What do you have against tea bags?” she asked as he filled her mug.

He sniffed. “Oh, they’re perfectly good for the sake of convenience,” he said. “But when one has time to savour – how’s the porridge coming, Jamie?”

“Dinnae fash yourself,” said Jamie, waving his spoon about. “I’m just done now.”

Porridge, it turned out, was greyish-cream and lumpy with an unpleasant sheen upon its surface. Jamie slopped it into two bowls and tilted the pan in her direction. “You’re sure you’ll not have any?”

It was at least the third time he’d asked. “I’m alright.” She pointedly took a bite of her food-brick, at which Jamie sort of rolled his eyes. “What?”

“I just dinnae understand why you’d want to eat his stuff when there’s real food to be had.” He then proceeded to complete his unappetising breakfast by sprinkling salt all over it. At least the Doctor was eating his with milk and honey, which didn’t sound _quite_ so awful.

Zoe opened her mouth to explain about efficiency and convenience and Progress and all the time he’d save if he did things her way – but the Doctor talked clean over her. “Yes, it’s a bit of a twenty-first century fad, Jamie,” he said. “Food machines are very new when Zoe comes from. Don’t worry, people go back to eating real food after a few years.”

Jamie grunted and dug into his porridge. Zoe pursed her lips. She wanted to say that it was _not_ a fad and was in fact Progress with a capital P – but she couldn’t exactly argue with history, could she?

Just to rub it in still further, the Doctor said, “you know, Zoe, I think you’re the first companion I’ve had who actually prefers the food machine.”

“Each to their own,” said Zoe. She finished her food-brick in two bites and picked up her tea. “I’ll be in the library.”

2  
_Space Station Lachesis, 2297 A.D._  


Zoe stared at the plate that had just been set down in front of her, feeling dismal and just a little bit sick. Which wasn’t fair at all, because it was a perfectly nice, nutritionally-balanced plate of food and it was very kind of their hosts to serve it to her. And yet here she was, staring at it.

She lifted her fork, which she would call old-fashioned were they not two centuries after her time, and poked at the meat. It oozed a little. She shuddered.

Jamie nudged her. “You alright?” he said. “You look a wee bit – off.”

“I’m fine.” Zoe wondered if it was meant to ooze like that or if hers was defective. She decided she’d better bite back her pride and confess. “It’s just – I’ve never actually eaten meat before.”

“You’ve no’ eaten _meat_?” He sounded so befuddled. She supposed that in his time it would be unthinkable.

“It doesn’t really _bother_ me,” she insisted. “I mean, I’m not a vegetarian – I eat things that contain animal proteins. I’ve just never had, um, real meat.” She prodded it with her fork. It oozed again. “Is it meant to do that?”

Jamie didn’t dignify her question with a response. He looked at her and he looked at her plate, and he said, “I’ll have yours if you dinnae want it.”

“No,” said Zoe. “No. I’ll make do.” She ought to get used to it, she told herself. What if they landed in a time like Jamie’s and there was nothing to eat _but_ meat? No, she ought to get over this now, when there were other sources of protein available if she really couldn’t stomach it. Very carefully, she sliced off a corner and speared it on her fork, acutely aware that Jamie was watching her ever move with an amused smile on his face. “What sort of meat is this?” She studied it. It glistened in the light.

“I think it’s pork,” said Jamie.

“That’s… pig?” said Zoe. “Isn’t it?”

Jamie stared at her and nodded slowly. “Aye. Pork is pig.”

“Alright,” said Zoe. It was probably for the best that she’d never seen a real pig. “Here goes.” She stuck it in her mouth, chewed it up as fast as she could, and made herself swallow. It wasn’t so bad. “That wasn’t so bad.”

“Good for you.” Jamie looked as if he couldn’t quite believe the situation he’d found himself in. Which was fair, she supposed, for she couldn’t quite believe it either. This was a space station, for pity’s sake. Why they’d bothered to bring along meat and bulky freezers to store it in she couldn’t fathom.

Her meal sat uneasily on her stomach all evening. Two hours later, while she was trying to remotely access the station’s personnel records, her guts starting cramping most unpleasantly and from there, things just got worse.

It was only logical, she told herself as she spat bile into the toilet. Her insides just weren’t used to meat – or to anything that wasn’t meal-cubes. It was her own silly fault. But that didn’t really – she gagged – make her feel much better.

“You any better?” said Jamie from outside the door.

“A little,” she choked out.

“Can I come in?”

“If you must.”

He found a cup and filled it with water. While she gulped it down, he crouched beside her and rubbed her back. “There, there,” he said tenderly. “You’ve got a wee bit in your hair.”

She groaned.

3  
_Southern Italy, 142 A.D._  


“Thank-you, Sabina.” The Doctor smiled at their hostess. “This all looks lovely.”

“Aye, thank you,” said Jamie.

“Hmm? Oh, thanks.” Zoe wasn’t really listening. She was preoccupied with the funny-smelling jug Sabina had put on the table. It contained a thin brown liquid that looked a bit like soy sauce but smelled rather more, well, _pungent_. “What’s this fishy-smelling stuff?” she said once Sabina had left them to their meal.

The Doctor sniffed the jug. “It’s garum,” he pronounced.

“Garum?” said Zoe.

“What’s that when it’s at home?” said Jamie. The Doctor handed him the jug. He sniffed it and winced, turning his face away. “Och, that reeks.” He passed it back to Zoe.

“What _is_ it?” Zoe asked.

“Fish, mostly,” said the Doctor.

“Why does it smell so –” Zoe cast about for a word that wasn’t horribly insulting. Sabina might still be in earshot. “Interesting?” She took one last sniff of the jug and set it down on the table.

The Doctor puffed out his cheeks in thought. “Hmm.” He picked up the jug. “Well, now, I’m afraid if I tell you how they make it, you might not want to eat it.” Very, very carefully he poured a dollop onto the edge of his plate. He offered the jug to Zoe.

“I’ll pass.” She’d never heard of garum but she’d heard some very strange things about Roman cookery. She’d been dreadfully relieved to be served something relatively plain. Once you took the awful fish sauce out of the equation, it was just bread and meat and some dumplings.

Jamie accepted the jug and put his nose in it. “Smells like it’s gone off.”

“It’s,” the Doctor grimaced as he sought the right word, “fermented.”

“Is that a nice way of saying it’s rotten fish?” Zoe scooped up some meat on her bread. She didn’t like the idea of eating with her fingers one bit.

“Ah, arguably,” said the Doctor. “Yes. It’s rotten fish. Not quite as, ah, strange as it sounds. They make similar things in East Asia and Scandinavia in your time, Zoe.” He looked at their bemused expressions. “I do hope I haven’t put your off your lunch.”

“I’ll manage,” said Zoe.

Across the table, Jamie grunted in agreement – then lifted the jug and slopped a generous amount of the contents all over his food. “Jamie!” she hissed.

“What?” he said. “You’re always tellin’ me to be more adventurous.” He’d spilled a little on his hand and now it was running down his wrist in a fat brown droplet, which he licked up. “It’s no’ so bad.” He tucked in. He was entirely too comfortable, Zoe thought, eating with _his_ fingers.

“Well,” said the Doctor with a deep sigh, “you know what they say. When in Rome.”

4  
_Planet Sunshine, 4115 A.D./1019 New Earth Calendar_  


There were times when the Doctor was adamant he’d landed them somewhere deliberately when it was clear he hadn’t; and then there were the rarer occasions when he insisted they’d ended up somewhere by blind chance, but Zoe was convinced he’d done it on purpose.

Times like this, when they’d had an especially nasty run-in with the Cybermen and then just-so-happened to land on ‘Sunshine, the Galaxy’s Premier Resort Planet’. It had turned out to be far nicer and much less tacky than the brightly-coloured logo suggested and they were having a rather lovely time – or at least they would be till someone worked out they weren’t actually paying guests.

Until then, they were going to make the best of it. “Keep an eye on Jamie at the ice cream bar,” the Doctor had told her. “He doesn’t cope well with unlimited sugar.” Then he’d wandered off to join the geology tour, leaving them alone in the Crystal Maze Dessert Café.

Well, she wasn’t Jamie’s _mother_. Quite frankly, she didn’t care what he ate. But she supposed she ought to make at least a token effort. “You’ll ruin your teeth,” she said as he piled on marshmallows.

“I dinnae care,” he said cheerily.

“Suit yourself.” She went back to their table.

She was a little dazzled and very concerned by the ice cream bar. It was actually a complex food synthesiser that could generate, amongst other things, seemingly unlimited quantities of marshmallows, chocolate chips, jelly babies, jelly tots (which were different), candy hearts, popping candy, cookie dough, hundreds-and-thousands, hazelnuts, liquorice allsorts, and an overwhelming array of syrups. Somebody had actually gone to the trouble of building an advanced piece of technology – lightyears ahead of anything in her time – and then programmed it to make nothing but ice cream. It was absurd. She wondered if this was how Jamie felt about GPS and digital music and things like that. What was the _point_ when people had got by for hundreds of years without?

Jamie set down one – two – _two_ heaving bowls on the silver table top. He slid one of them towards her, grinning. “Here you are.”

“Oh, no,” Zoe stared at the multi-coloured spectacle before her. She didn’t know it was possible to stuff that many sweets into one bowl. “Is there even any ice cream under there?”

“Aye, it’s a few layers down. Ye’ll have to dig for it,” Jamie said brightly. He already had syrup on his face. She shoved the napkin dispenser towards him. _Thank you for using Sunshine napkins!_ It chirruped.

“It looks disgusting.” What was the blue syrup? She dipped a finger in it. Bubblegum, maybe? Was that what bubblegum tasted like?

“That’s no’ very nice,” he said. “I made it just for you! I left the peanut butter and the liquorice off yours.” He dug in his spoon. Candy rained down and sticky strings of syrup dribbled all over his wrist. “I can eat it, if you dinnae want to –”

That settled it. She had to save him from himself. “No,” she picked up her spoon. “No, I can’t let you do that to yourself. I’ll eat it.”

He beamed at her, pink and white ice cream running down his chin. She giggled. “What?”

“You’re _covered_ in ice cream,” she said. “ _Already_. Here.” She took a napkin – _thank you for using_ – and leaned over the table, dabbing ineffectually at his face.

He batted her away. “Och, dinnae bother,” he said. “What’s the point, if you dinnae make a mess?”

“That’s an interesting philosophy of life,” said Zoe, digging through the layers of sugar and gelatine for some chocolate ice cream.

“It’s no’ a philosophy of life,” he said. “It’s a philosophy of ice cream.”

Zoe lifted her spoon to her mouth – and promptly dribbled pink and blue swirled syrup all over her shirt. She stared down at the damage, Jamie sniggering across the table. “I’m going to get _so_ sticky,” she reflected.

5  
_The TARDIS_  


The TARDIS had been – well, Zoe would say ‘grounded’, except that was the exact opposite of what was happening. The TARDIS had been hovering in the time-space vortex, on stand-by, for five days while the Doctor stripped down the dematerialisation circuits. Apparently this was essential maintenance that had been overdue for “ah, hm, about fifty years? These things do pile up so,” and now if they tried to materialise they’d probably blip out of existence altogether. That, the Doctor said, or turn inside out.

Her usual strategy was to spend down-time in the library, reading up on science after her time or history before it, but five days reading alone had got a little tiresome. The Doctor didn’t want to be disturbed, so she was reading at the kitchen table while Jamie cooked dinner.

He was making something that smelled very strongly of onions and meat-fat, and the smell wafting through the kitchen was distracting her from her reading and also reminding her how long it had been since the cheese sandwiches bar she’d had for lunch.

“Are you sure you won’t have any?”

Zoe looked at the contents of his frying pan. The meat he was cooking was brownish-grey and looked as if it had been thoroughly mashed and apparently he planned to eat it with potatoes. It smelled good, but looked plain awful. “No, thank you.”

“You’re sure?” said Jamie. “There’s plenty.”

She supposed she’d better be honest. “No offense, Jamie,” she said, “but everything you cook looks like somebody’s already chewed it.”

To her relief, he laughed. “You’re bein’ very culturally insensitive, ye ken,” he said, accentuating the words carefully. She wondered when exactly he’d learned what ‘culturally insensitive’ meant and if he planned to use it a lot.

“I’m not,” she said. “That just doesn’t look very nice.”

“Suit yourself.” He tasted it and wiped his greasy hand on his kilt.

She finished a chapter and closed her book. “I’m going to the food machine.”

He pulled a face. “Alright. You do that.”

Zoe stood in front of the food machine, hands on hips, for an irritatingly long time. She’d been planning to have either cheese-and-tomato pasta or Venusian quash (which she’d discovered only recently and found she rather liked) but now she couldn’t decide between them and come to think of it maybe she didn’t want either. Her stomach growled. She considered punching in a random code and eating whatever the machine spat out – and gave up.

In the kitchen, Jamie was scooping his mince-and-onions onto two plates. She hovered in the doorway and said, “the food machine’s not working.”

“ _Again_?” he said. “Och, I hate that thing. Well, you’d best tell the Doctor.”

“Oh, no,” said Zoe. “He’s busy, I don’t want to worry him.” She couldn’t quite bring herself to ask. She stood looking wistfully at his pan and he stood staring back at her.

“Sooo,” he said at length, gesturing at the pan with his spoon. “You’ll be wantin’ some of this, then?”

“Yes, please.” Zoe tried not to sound too eager. “If it’s no trouble.” She slid into a seat.

“Oh aye, it’s nae bother.” He heaped another helping onto a plate and plonked it down on the table. “I’ll just be takin’ this to the Doctor,” he said, picking up one of the other plates.

While he was gone, Zoe poked at her mince and potatoes and tentatively tried a bite. For all his faults, she decided, Jamie wasn’t a bad cook. Even if it _did_ look as if it had been chewed up.

“Will you be wantin’ porridge tomorrow, then?” he asked when he came back, before he’d even sat down.

Zoe considered. “We’ll see,” she said. Jamie grinned at her. “If the food machine’s still broken,” she added hastily.

“Oh, aye.” He picked up his spoon. “If it’s still broken.” She couldn’t tell whether or not he believed her and frankly she didn’t care. She dug in to her dinner.


End file.
